"Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell." Frederick Buechner

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"If you are a dreamer, come in. If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, a Hope-er, a Pray-er, a Magic Bean buyer; if you're a pretender, come sit by my fire. For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! Come in!" -- Shel Silverstein

Sunday, May 18, 2014

The Trouble With Heaven

May 18, 2014 –
Easter V

All Saint’s
Episcopal Church, Rehoboth Beach

(the Rev’d Dr)
Elizabeth Kaeton

Will the circle be
unbroken

By and by Lord, by and
by?Is a better home awaiting

In the sky, Lord, in the
sky?

In the name of God, Creator, Word and Spirit. Amen.

This is a sermon about heaven- or, actually, the trouble with heaven.

So, let me being by putting this into context for
you.

In this morning’s Gospel, John takes us back to the time
just before the troubles began for Jesus. Jesus had raised Lazarus from the
dead and word of this miracle had spread far and wide as people gathered in the
City of Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover.

If the Pharisees aren’t already angry about this miracle of
Lazarus, they have set their hair on fire and run down the street, furious
because the miracle took place on a Sabbath! And, Jeeze Louise! Everyone knows
you’re not supposed to heal on the Sabbath, much less raise a man from the
dead.

And then, when Jesus and his disciples made their entry into Jerusalem
for the Feast of the Passover, everyone shouted “Hosanna” and treated Jesus
like a rock star. It was disgusting! Well, in the eyes of the Pharisees, that
is.

In this Gospel scene, Judas has just left the Upper Room to
complete his vocation of betrayal.

Jesus begins to prepare his disciples for
his death, telling them, “Where I am going, you can not come.” Thomas is
confused and asks, “Where are you going?”

Jesus, whose heart is troubled by what he knows is about to
happen, says to Thomas, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” and describes heaven
as a place – his Father’s house – where there are many rooms. Jesus says he is
going to prepare a place for them there and then he will return to come and
take them there himself.

It’s a lovely image for heaven, isn’t it? I know it brings
me a deep sense of comfort and solace as it has millions of people throughout
the ages who believe the words of the Eucharistic prayer we say during a
funeral; that “life is changed, not ended”.

Many of us hold onto the belief
that there is a place for us in heaven where the Spirit will take us when we
die and we will spend eternity bathed in the light of Christ and held in the
arms of God.

Well, at least, we want to believe that.

As a Hospice
Chaplain, I have learned that there is nothing like a diagnosis with a terminal
implication to shake that belief right down to its very core. The one question
I get consistently is one about heaven. Is it real? Will I get there? Will I
seem my loved ones there?

Or, in the words of that wonderful old hymn, “Will the
circle be unbroken? Is a better home a waiting in the sky, Lord, in the sky?”

We want very much to believe, but when we are looking into the abyss, our knees begin to buckle.

Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled” about the
afterlife and yet, our culture seems - even more so lately - obsessed with ‘all
heaven all the time.’

There are TV programs and movies with titles like
“Resurrection” and “Heaven is Real," “Transformation” and "Son of God", and books like “Proof
of Heaven”.

On the flip side,
we’ve seen an update of “Rosemary’s Baby” as a TV miniseries.

When we’re not talking about the possibility of life after
death or heard the refrain “Religious Freedom” or the SCOTUS decision on public
prayer, TV commercials have angels selling us everything from sexy Victoria
Secrets underwear to Angle Soft toilet paper to tend to our tushies.

According to a poll of 2,500 Americans reported in the
Washington Post last May

-- 62% believe in heaven and think
they are going there.

-- 44% believe in hell as "a place
of suffering and punishment where some

people
go after they die;"

-- The 56% overall belief in the
existence of the devil and 53% belief in

hell
was consistent across all the four survey age groups;

-- With regard to what causes evil in
the world, i.e., the Boston Marathon

people
are evil while youngerrespondents
(18-29) feel people are sick;

-However, nearly one-fourth of Americans (23%) identify themselves
as "not at all" religious - a figure that has nearly doubled since
2007, when it was at 12%. -

There’s lots of information and misinformation out there
about heaven – and hell, as a matter of fact – and the God’s honest truth is
that we simply don’t know what awaits us after we die.It’s an all too obvious but, I suppose,
necessary thing to point out that no one has died and returned to verify and
authenticate the words of Jesus.

Except, of course, those who have had an NDE or “Near Death
Experience”. The stories of those people pretty consistently report the
presence of a tunnel with a very bright light at the end.

Is that ‘proof of heaven’ or the old
understanding of ‘limbo’ (AKA “God’s Waiting Room”), or simply the body’s
psycho-chemical response to the traumatic event of a temporary shut down of
organs?

We can’t be certain, can we? That’s the problem with heaven.
In the end, it all comes down to a matter of what we choose to believe.And, I suspect, we choose to believe
that which brings us comfort and solace as we grieve our loss or consider our
own mortality.

I have found two images very helpful to me, personally, as
well as to those with whom I am privileged to minister as the hour of their
death draws near.

Here’s the first image I have found helpful, one which I
hope will also be helpful to you. It came to me, first, as I used to listen to
my grandmother as she held her infant great and then great great grandchildren
in her arms for the first time. Have you ever noticed that newborns sometimes
get very animated in their sleep? Their mouths move and they grimace or smile?
My grandmother used to see that and say, “Ah, she’s getting last minute
instructions from the angels.”

Later, I learned that newborns will follow the sound of
their mother and, often, their father, seemingly recognizing the sound of their
voices. That’s because they do. In utero, babies can hear. They don’t know what
they’re listening to, of course, but they hear.

So, that got me to thinking and it stirred my imagination an
creativity.

I like to imagine the whole round world as our womb – the uterus
into which we are born from our mother’s womb.

Every now and again, we get
glimpses of that ‘other world’, that ‘other, eternal reality’ that lies beyond
this known world of our present reality.

Like newborn infants, we can’t
possibly know or understand what is “out there”. We only have hints and
intuitions, whispers and murmurs, glimpses and flashes of knowing.

And so our earthly death is really just a new birth. We are
born again through death into the new life of eternity with God who created us
and gave us these earthly bodies to wear for all the days and seasons of our
lives on this plane.

“Life is changed, not ended” as our Eucharistic prayer says.
I not only say that prayer, I believe that prayer. Do I have proof? No. I don’t
need proof. I have faith.

The second image is from Henri Nouwen, the Jesuit theologian
who was also a prolific writer. In his book, Bread for the Journey, Nouwen
writes;

Hope and faith will both come to an end when we die.
But love will remain. Love is eternal. Love comes from God and returns to God.
When we die, we will lose everything that life gave us except love. The love
with which we lived our lives is the life of God within us. It is the divine,
indestructible core of our being. This love not only will remain but will also
bear fruit from generation to generation.

When we approach our deaths let us say to those we
leave behind, "Don't let your heart be troubled. The love of God that
dwells in my heart will come to you and offer you consolation and comfort.

I choose to believe Nouwen’s words. I do believe Love is
eternal – because I believe “all love is of God” – it comes from God and
returns to God. And, I do believe that the love in our hearts that never dies
comes to our loved ones after we die and offers them consolation and comfort,
yes, as well as hope.It lives on
and bears fruit from generation to generation.

Now, if I were to argue the case for heaven in a court of
law, I would undoubtedly lose.The
trouble with heaven is that I have no forensic evidence. The only evidence I
have is anecdotal.Circumstantial,
at best. I have my belief and I have my faith. And, my faith gives me
consolation. Consolation gives me reason to hope. And, hope defeats despair.
And defeated despair quickens love. And love, my friends, all love, is of God.
It is a gift that can never be destroyed. It lives on through eternity.

The love of God which we hold in our hearts will return to
our loved ones after we die and our born into the new life of eternity with
God, and it will give to our loved ones solace and comfort and hope.

This is what I believe.It is my response to the request of Jesus who said, “Let not
your hearts be troubled,” even as his own heart was deeply troubled by the
death he knew he was about to face.I suspect it gave him some comfort to know that his life and his death
were for naught. Indeed, it was for love.

And he is the very incarnation of God’s love for us, which
we re-member whenever we gather together, to listen to the Word of God and the
Teachings of Jesus, affirm our faith and share together in the breaking of the
Bread and drinking of the Wine.

For it is in partaking in this Holy Communion that the
circle is unbroken, and, like babes in the womb, we all catch a glimpse of that
Heavenly mansion where there is a place for each one of us. The trouble with
heaven is the same trouble with love. It is this: As the fox said to The Little
Prince. “That which is essential is invisible to the eye.”

5 comments:

I am Roman Catholic (former Episcopalian) and every single Sunday when I receive the Eucharist, I weep with gratitude and I am overwhelmed with God's love.

That love can never die, I know that without any doubts or misgivings.

The day my protestant grandmother died she told my mother to get off the bed because she was preventing Jesus and my already dead grandfather from getting to her. She saw them clearly and left in peace with great love.

Just don't say that the thought came to me as I was doing some, um, "free association" - which is to say, I was sitting in front of the fire with a great glass of Argentinian Merlo. Some of my best thoughts come to me that way.

A very moving sermon. It reminded me of my Mother'death and various people that wanted her baptized in their church in order that she could go to Heaven. The next door neighbor insisted she be baptized in the Catholic church, my Boyfriend at the time insisted she be baptized in his non-denominational church. (My Mother had been raised in a Baptist House but married my Father A catholic man. ) She asked me if I thought she needed to be re-baptized. I said, she could if she wanted to but I did not think it was needed as the Bible does not state you must be Baptized in x church. I was also reminded of the biblical verse about many rooms in our Father's house. Are the many room's needed for the different branches of our faith? Why so much division?Thanks for the sermon.Maria

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About Me

I am a joyful Christian who claims the fullness of the Anglican tradition of being evangelical, Anglo-Catholic, charismatic, orthodox and radical. Since 1991, my canonical residence has been the Diocese of Newark, where I was a member of the Women's Commission (since 1993), the Department of Missions (2 terms), The Commission on Ministry (1 term), The Standing Committee (4 years, one as President). I served as an elected Deputy to General Convention in 2000, 2003, and 2006. I have served as a board member of Integrity, USA, and as a founding member of Claiming The Blessing. I am national Convener of The Episcopal Women's Caucus, and am now member of the national board of RCRC. I attended the Lambeth Conference in 1998 and 2008 representing EWC. I graduated in May 2008 from Drew with my doctorate in Pastoral Care and Counseling and was Proctor Fellow at EDS, Spring Semester 2011. I am a GOE reader. I consult and counsel at Canterbury Pastoral Care Center in Harbeson, DE.

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